My Dad was a mechanic for Usairways starting back in the Allegheny days. There's a love of machines and machinery that runs in the blood on both sides of the family, so I was probably already pre-disposed to it. I'm your average pilot, a 10 year old kid trapped in a 40 year old body now, I love shiny things that make noises. My mother claims there's gasoline in our blood. If I couldn't fly planes, I'd probably be a truck driver, bus driver, train engineer,etc. The whole ballet of transportation is fascinating, I'm not a 9-5 type of person.
My younger brother followed my Dads footsteps and became an A&P, getting on with Comair out of school and he was there for a few years before they closed the doors. He's now a tech on NASA's wind tunnel in CLE. He's way better at wrenching than I could ever be, though I do a fair amount of DIY.
My Dad would take us to the Usair Mx hangar when he could (even now, if I'm in the Mx hangar, I don't feel totally out of place). When PIT was busy, we'd sit out on the end of the 28's and watch planes land (there were more of them when I was little). My Dads barber from the time he was a kid until the barber died a about 10 years ago,set up shop at Allegheny County Airport (AGC). We'd get our hair cut and then watch planes for a bit.
But fixing planes always seemed like too much work. I knew I wanted to fly them. As I type this , there's a picture collage of 5 year old me in a kiddieland airplane ride, a picture of me in pilots costume my mother made (including an inflatable airplane pool float), another of me throwing a big styrofoam glider. The last picture is of me doing FO IOE in a Piedmont Dash 8 from HHH-CLT.
My only regret is I procrastinated on doing it. Didn't want to do school, didn't want to instruct. Wanted to do the Comair academy or Gulfstream, but then the bad connotations of that pushed me away. Did some other jobs; aircraft cleaner for Usairways, flight attendant for Shuttle America in the SAAB days. Did the ATOP program you see advertised and that rekindled my wanting to fly. About two years after that, around 25, I decided to go for the pilot thing. Finished a two year degree, finished commercial SEL. Went to American Flyers for CFI-CFII. Was lucky to get a job instructing at the school I'd done most of my ratings at.
My career after that has been interesting, more so than I wanted, but it is what it is. I'm currently at C5 as a newly minted E-145 captain after four years in the Dash. 10 year old me would be proud and though I know it's hard on my kids and wife when I'm not there, they're proud of me too.
I went to my 20th HS reunion two years ago and everyone I ran into was like "Wow, you're a pilot. You always wanted to do that!" We endless beat the "Living the Dream" to death as pilots, but whatever happens, I did get to live my dream. People who are selling insurance, running a chain of self-storage facilities, they didn't dream that.
